Astana held the 1st session of the Trilateral Coordination Committee (TCC) for railroad construction between Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Iran. Members of the delegation of the three countries and representatives of the Secretariat of the OEC and Islamic Bank of Development participated, Iran.ru reports.
Each side presented national reports. 95% of Kazakhstan's 146 km stretch of track had had earth moved and 18 km of track had been laid. The total cost of the project in Kazakhstan is $430 million. Contracts were signed with 9 contractors for $258 million, $52 million were realized. There are also contracts laying fiber-optic cables and establishing of alert warning,centralization, blocking and communications systems .
Kazakhstan made assurances that, by the end of 2011, construction of Bolashak station will have been completed and proposed opening a control post on the border between Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan. The delegation of Turkmenistan declared that they are planning to build a village on the border between Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan to house a locomotive terminal, customs office, housing and other social facilities.
Turkmenistan also informed the session that they had completed 304 km of railroad from Brakat station to the border of Kazakhstan. They have 350 people working and using 120 units of heavy engineering. The Iranian delegation said that they had completed the technical-economic work on the segment on Iranian territory, which is 90 km long.
The Iranian segment will have 7 main and 16 other kinds of crossings with roads. The total approximate costs are $185 million. Completion of the project is expected in December 2011. The sides expressed gratitude to the Islamic Bank of Development for providing a large credit to Turkmenistan. Participants in the summit also requested the bank to provide other countries involved in the project with credits in order to realize the projects. The sides decided to hold their next meeting in December 2010.
Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev launched construction of the new section of railroad "Uzen — state border with Turkmenistan" on September 30th, 2009. This line is part of the new "North-South" railroad route, which will be located on the territory of the three countries, increasing the transit and export potential of the participants. The total length of the railroad will be 686 km. The project is worth 345 thousand euros.
